Heavy blooms expose
their fleshy bodies
in such enterprise
among the dunes—
as mine to yours.

Such immeasurable delight:
the pale lips of the iris
curling to the listless sky.

In its assault on the shore,
the throbbing surf
folds again and again.

Somewhere through the mist
a gull is flying low,
calling out.

---

Award-winning author and Pushcart Prize nominee, California poet Bri Bruce (writing as B. L. Bruce) has been called the “heiress of Mary Oliver.” With a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz, her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, magazines, and literary publications, including The Wayfarer Journal, Canary, Northwind Magazine, The Soundings Review, and The Monterey Poetry Review, among many others. Most recently her work has appeared in the American Haiku Society’s Frogpond Journal, The Remnant Archive, Emerge Literary Journal, and Le Merle Poetry Journal. Bruce is the recipient of the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize and the PushPen Press Pendant Prize for Poetry, as well as the author of three books: The Weight of Snow, 28 Days of Solitude, and The Starling’s Song. Her third and fourth collections of poetry are forthcoming. Her highly praised debut collection, The Weight of Snow, was the 2014 International Book Awards poetry category finalist and the 2014 USA Best Book Awards poetry category finalist. The Starling’s Song was released in February of 2016, and was selected as Honorable Mention in the Pacific Rim Book Festival. In addition to her writing pursuits, Bruce is the Editor-in-Chief of the nature-centric literary magazine Humana Obscura, and is a painter and photographer, with work that has been featured in The Sun Magazine, Near Window, and others.

[image: Wild Irises bloom at Cape Douglas | NPS Photo / C. Augustson]